Episode 118 – Project Failure: When Should You Take the Blame?

The podcast by project managers for project managers. An episode about detecting imminent failure and dealing with project issues that could lead to failure. The project manager’s approach to supporting the team, addressing issues, and communicating resolutions is crucial for any project facing adversity.



Table of Contents



01:56 … Meet Susan03:54 … Susan’s Project Story08:30 … When Nobody Speaks Up10:59 … Warning Signs15:55 … When is the Project Manager at Fault19:38 … Sequestering the Team22:25 … Maintaining Communication Channels26:40 … Root Cause Analysis28:30 … Documenting Lessons Learned31:06 … The Resolution of Susan’s Project34:05 … Get in Touch with Susan35:03 … Closing



SUSAN IRWIN:  It’s not about ego.  It is about furthering the practice of project management, it is about making everybody great.  It is about working together as a unified team. Not just a project team, but a project manager team, to make each one of us great.



WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me is Bill Yates.  So an interesting thing happened to us the other day. As we were preparing to record this podcast, two days ago, we had some equipment failure.



BILL YATES:  Yes, we did.



WENDY GROUNDS:  And that amounts to a project failure.



BILL YATES:  Yes.



WENDY GROUNDS:  Have you ever had a project fail, Bill?



BILL YATES:  Yes, I certainly have.  I think most who are listening to this can relate.  I think it was quite ironic that we would have a project failure, even with our episode as we were going to record this. First time.  That’s too funny.



WENDY GROUNDS:  Fortunately, Danny got us fixed up, and we’re ready to go today.



BILL YATES:  You know, Wendy, it occurs to me this topic is one that is really rich.  And we offer an online course by Neal  Whitten on this topic of project failure.  It’s called “17 Top Reasons Why Projects Fail.”  Neal goes through those.  He introduces those 17, and then of course talks about how we can avoid them.  So another way we can go deeper in this topic.



WENDY GROUNDS:  We’re actually talking with someone who has experience in project failure.  Our guest is Susan Irwin, and she’s an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama, Collat School of Business.



BILL YATES:  Wendy, this is going to be a pertinent conversation for our listeners.  And I’m excited to have Susan with us.  She has great information about both how to detect when failure is imminent with a project, and then advice.  So she gives four areas of advice for those that are dealing with project issues that could lead to failure.  So let’s get into it with Susan.



Meet Susan



WENDY GROUNDS:  Susan, welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being our guest.



SUSAN IRWIN:  Yes, thank you.  I’m so excited to be able to share my ideas.



WENDY GROUNDS:  We’re looking forward to hearing your story.  But I want to ask you about your career background.  Can you tell me how you got into project management?



SUSAN IRWIN:  So I’ve been doing this for about 15 years.  And so like most project managers that have been doing it for this long, I actually stumbled into it by happenstance. I was a developer by trade.  I was really content on spending my life in the development side of the house.  A manager at the time saw something in me, and this was back when project management was first starting to come into industry.  You didn’t really see it much outside of the government sector. 



He asked me if I wanted to step into this role as a project manager. I really was apprehensive about it because I didn’t really see at that time the value in project management.  I felt that project managers were more of the gatekeeper and less of the facilitator of getting work done. And so I begrudgingly did it, and I fell in love with it.



So I went in, I did my PMP certification, and fell in love with it.